Helping Hands

BryklynLibrul demands speculation about the possible impact of a third party wanker ticket: "If this turns out to be serious, who does it help, the GOP or the Dems? Idle speculation at this point, but I'm curious to know what MY and others think."

The cop-out answer is that it depends on who the nominees are.

But taking a wide-angle view, the rise of a serious third party challenge typically signifies the collapse of the incumbent governing coalition. Certainly Perot in 1992, Wallace in 1968, and Roosevelt in 1912, Van Buren in 1848 fit that pattern, and Strom Thurmond in 1948 probably does as well. But that's not to say that the third party insurgent always helps the challenger party. The Humphrey-Nixon race in '68 ended up extremely close and it seems reasonable to assume that the bulk of the Wallace vote would have gone to Nixon (as it did in 1972) had he not been in the race. And it can get even more complicated, as Perot's presence in the 1992 race probably helped Bill Clinton win the election but there's good reason to think he could have won even without Perot, and in a one-on-one fight maybe could have secured a majority and thus had a stronger hand dealing with congress in 1993.

Now, of course, the weird thing about Bloombergism is that there's no sign that he's filling an open ideological niche. Pat Buchanan, by contrast, drew half a percentage point in 2000 at a time when his campaign didn't really have much of a rationale. By 2008, immigration is going to be a higher-salience issue, economic populism will have a larger constituency, and nationalist anti-war sentiment will have gone unrepresented in mainstream politics throughout years of failed war-fighting. You could imagine either Buchanan or, perhaps more likely Ron Paul, having a real impact. Otherwise, there's really nothing doing.

Comments

I really can't see the point of Bloomberg leading the Unity '08 ticket if Rudy actually gets the nomination.

And if Huckabee gets it, will Ron Paul endorse Bloomy?

Posted by Quietus | December 31, 2007 2:40 PM

bloomberg works if huckabee is the nominee, as the moderate/centrist/unifying/bipartisan voice of business and probably neocons. i bet if the gop nominates huck, then bloomberg AND paul run and the entire coalition disintegrates.

Posted by Max B. | December 31, 2007 2:41 PM

I guess you are required to have opinions on everything but you are wrong on Perot helping Clinton.

If it mattered, I would go look it up for you, but the exit polling at the time, and the ffect of Perot' REENTRY ito the race are cotra your bald assertion.

Posted by Armando | December 31, 2007 2:44 PM

Bloom would help the repukes, who will stay unified in their chosen hate-monger. All the "we're so thoughtful" folk would split, and "oh, can't we all just get along?" idiots will pull for Bloom.

Posted by Gore/Edwards 08 | December 31, 2007 2:46 PM

Perot's presence in the 1992 race probably helped Bill Clinton win the election

Somerby recalls that the Perot-helped-Clinton trope was flatly contradicted by exit polls in the '92 general, which showed Perot's presence in the race was at best a wash, at worst a small benefit to Poppy, not Clinton.

See http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh062905.shtml (scroll down to "Occasional Report").

Posted by Gee | December 31, 2007 2:46 PM

There's not even a push for structural reforms at work here. They're not really building a party, they're not pushing for changes to Congressional or electoral rules or anything that would have a lasting change on the political process.

Even if Bloomberg were to somehow find a base of support and get himself elected, what exactly is supposed to happen? And what's supposed to happen after his terms are up?

Posted by Royko | December 31, 2007 2:50 PM

I think it depends on if Obama wins in Iowa or not: if he does then Bloomberg will likely not run because the change mantle will have been taken and there's no point in going in to bloody Obama who would havea path to the nomination and the party behind him in the general.

If Clinton wins then its hard to see Obama winning the race and Edwards will not be a factor whether or not he wins Iowa because he doesn't have the support or money to play with Clinton.

Clinton the democratic nominee is an opening for liberal-centrist-pragmatic Bloomberg who can work with Republicans and Democrats, change being the heart of his candidacy, experience dealing with terrorism in NYC and running a large city as well as being a billionaire indicating his managment experience.

He's like a Clinton-Romeny hybrid that liberals and moderate Republicans and Independents can get excited about since Obama's not there to generate heat.

He has a clear opening if Clinton or Edwards is the democratic nominee. And can make a case if Obama gets bloodied enough getting the nomination. Through if its Obama, I don't think he'll get in.

I hope he does if Obama loses the nomination; I'd have someone I WANT to vote for then.

Posted by Rhoda | December 31, 2007 2:54 PM

Also: Edwards/Obama shows half the democratic electrolate doesn't want Clinton in the White House. The Republicans are a mess this year and fiscal/small government conservatives pissed off.

There are a lot of constituences in play if Clinton is the nominee of the democratic party: and Iowa will go a long way to determining that too.

So I can see why he's seriously considering.

Posted by Rhoda | December 31, 2007 2:58 PM

There's a lot of unhappy conservatives who would probably stay home rather than vote for any of the Democrats-- I'd guess that Bloomberg voters would come mostly from them. Leading to the conclusion that a Bloomberg candidacy might get a significant number of votes, but won't change the result.

Posted by MattF | December 31, 2007 3:11 PM

So the anti-taxers are split into two as well? The big business, "corporatists", and Club for Growth folks are who really more for corporate welfare and deregulation than small-government (and foreign policy neocons) follow Bloomberg, and the grassroots libertarians, ideological Libertarians, and foreign policy paleocons people go for Ron Paul?

Posted by Quietus | December 31, 2007 3:29 PM

just one slight correction for matt.
in '68 wallace took dems and votes from humphrey, not nixon.
without wallace in the race, humphrey probably wins.
wallace's voters were straight democratic voters.
they were reagan democrats before that term was coined. while wallace's appeal was explicitly racist, in some ways, the democratic coalition had not split completely at that time. it was in the process of breaking up, but the party still had lots of pull for blue collar dems.
wallace also had an extremely powerful economic populist edge to his campaign. sort of like huckabee with more edge and a more subtle religious tone.
i was acquainted with, through my truck driver, union official dad, a lot of middle-aged white guys with wallace stickers on their cars who would have never voted for nixon.
it was kind of odd, how they felt comfortable voting for wallace, but nixon was a bridge too far.

Posted by frankie d | December 31, 2007 3:33 PM

The commenters about the '92 election are correct. Perot voters were a bite out of Bush's base. Equally wrong was the MY comment about George Wallace. Those votes were almost all Humphrey's and it did affect the election far more than the anti-war dems did. They almost all voted for HHH.

Bloomberg and/or Hagel would attract the brainier part of the republican/independent/Lieberman votes who would go republican or stay home anyway. That's a bigger group than one might think, but its a long way from 50% and won't pull enough democrats to change the winner.

A Clinton nomination is the most likely to produce a third party run, but because she can't possibly get to 50% in a national election, this would only help her. Both Obama and Edwards are smart enough to point out that the UNITY 08 founders did the most partisan thing of all: they created a third party.

Net effect: Zero

Peace to all in the New Year

Posted by Peter Driscoll | December 31, 2007 3:35 PM

Perhaps the correct comparison for a Bloomberg presidential run isn't Perot or TR, etc., but Lieberman.

Posted by urbino | December 31, 2007 3:42 PM

Re: Perot's presence in the 1992 race probably helped Bill Clinton win the election but there's good reason to think he could have won even without Perot

This is partly true, since Clinton was comfortably ahead before Perot re-entered the race in September of 1992, but it ignores the effect of Peror on the early months of the race, when his candidacy had the effect of detaching voters (mainly the old Reagan Democrats) from Bush and then delivering many of them to Clinton when he withdrew. Perot's re-entry in the 1992 race mainly had the effect of denying Clinton a majority, but it's an open question whether Clinton would have won had the race always been a two man race.

Re: Perot voters were a bite out of Bush's base.

Wrong. Perot voters were not "base" Reoublicans, if for no other reason than because Perot was pro-Choice and he could not have attracted the GOP base with that stance. Perot voters were mainly Reagan Democrats, disatisfied with George Bush, but not quite ready to return to voting Demoratic for president.

Posted by JonF | December 31, 2007 4:00 PM

There is not one core group in the Democratic Party who would vote for Bloomberg. However, there are many groups inside the Republican Party who would vote for Bloomberg.

Bloomberg would not move any stated that Kerry won in 2004 into the Republican column but would cause many states to swing to Democrats. Bloombrg would move Virgnia from a toss up state to a lock for the Democrats.

It would not be that surprising that Bloomberg ends up as an Ambassador in any future Clinton Administration.

Posted by superdestroyer | December 31, 2007 4:05 PM

I think this is the right take. When a third party makes an unusually strong bid, it speaks primarily to the weakness of the party already in power.

I doubt it's going to happen anyway--Bloomberg is enough of an egotist to realize that he's currently on track to leave office as one of the most popular mayors ever, and if he took a year off to campaign (and, to boot, threatened to jeopardize a Democratic victory), that'd all be ashes. I don't think he's going to do that. This is about forcing the Dem nominee to the center no matter who (s)he is.

Posted by Mike B. | December 31, 2007 4:09 PM

Perot also had the effect of focussing and keeping media attention on the budget deficit - which was his primary 3rd party platform. If it had just been a 2-man race, there's no reason to believe that the media would have treated Clinton seriously and not succumbed to the right wing wurlitzer and issue framing. The presence of Perot, and the media's fascination with him, kept issues other than Clinton's character alive which Clinton was able to capitalize on, much to the chagrin of the Republicans. You can point to the exit polling, etc. to measure voters as far as which one's voted for Perot, but Perot's presence in the campaign definitely created a more favorable media environment for Clinton than he otherwise would have had - and that can't be measured by exit polling Perot voters.

A third party canddate, if he/she can create enough support to get and hold media interest, will help focus attention on the third party candidates issues, and should help negate GOP campaigns that depend upon "Swift-Boat" type smear tactics.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | December 31, 2007 4:12 PM

the weird thing about Bloombergism is that there's no sign that he's filling an open ideological niche

What was Perot's niche exactly? Would it be anti-NAFTA?

Posted by Matt Weiner | December 31, 2007 4:35 PM

Matt, why are you going to vote for Nader? I don't think he's even running. I don't get it.

Posted by blah2 | December 31, 2007 4:44 PM

Not to ignore Ethel-to-Tilly's point; I remember the deficit as one of Perot's primary issues. But I'm not sure that counts as an ideological niche waiting to be filled so much as an issue that Perot was able to bring to prominence, because he had lots of money to spend on his campaign. And Bloomberg has the same money.

Admittedly, it's not clear that Bloomberg even has a signature issue like that.

Posted by Matt Weiner | December 31, 2007 4:48 PM

which showed Perot's presence in the race was at best a wash, at worst a small benefit to Poppy, not Clinton.

Perot would hate to know this considering how much he personally hated Bush & CO (and for good reason ... read Made in Texas for some talk about the cultural issues at play).

As to Perot's niche -- Perot himself actually was more or less an American (albeit as a civilian military-industrial complex outsider as opposed to military insider) version of Juan Peron. However, a large part of the support for Perot came from the "Democrats and Republicans are both too extreme, we need someone in the middle" muddled masses who mindlessly parrot the Unity '08 and Villager Wanker types. You know, the sort of people who will personally express views far more liberal than the Kewl Kidz but then point out "even the liberal Kewl Kidz think the Dems. are going too far".

That the Village Wankers ridiculed Perot's views on trade (Perot turned out to be right, of course) didn't enter into the picture, in part because the average person who would fall for Unity '08 style "middle way" crap doesn't like the Kewl Kidz anyway, even if they end up parroting everything the Kewl Kidz say (they just mis-identify the ideology of the Kewl Kidz as liberalism rather than neo-manoralism).

Even if Perot and Bloomie are ideologically very different, I imagine a good number of people who voted for Perot would vote for Bloomie for the same reasons.

*

Bloomberg would also, if Giuliani is the GOP nominee, peel off the votes of alter-kockers in South FL (assuming they don't get confused and vote for Buchannan instead ;) ) who would generally vote Dem, but would cross party lines and vote for Giuliani because "he did such a good job cleaning up NYC" ... but would vote for a Nice Jewish Boy like Bloomberg over Giuliani.

Posted by DAS | December 31, 2007 4:52 PM

third party canddate, if he/she can create enough support to get and hold media interest, will help focus attention on the third party candidates issues - Ethyl to Tilly

The other thing third party candidates can do is alter what happens down ticket by bringing out voters who otherwise might just skip the election if they don't feel the Big-2 candidates meet their criteria.

For example, as Michael Moore (whom we can -- watch for the internal rhyme -- ignore ... because he's horizontally challenged) points out, Nadar actually helped get out the vote for the Democrats: people who otherwise would have stayed home because they felt Gore was GOP-lite came out to vote for Nadar and voted for Dem. candidates down-ticket.

OTOH, maybe even if Perot did eat into people who preferred Bush to Clinton, they might have stayed home if it weren't for Perot, but since they did go out and vote, maybe they voted GOP down-ticket (does anybody have any data about this?).

Bloomberg, I imagine, would attract a number of faux-independent "I vote for the candidate not the party" types, so who would benefit down ticket from Bloomberg getting AKs out to vote is uncertain: probably candidates who are fairly moderate, if not liberal, on most issues, but who seem to have an innate discomfort with dirty hippies.

Posted by DAS | December 31, 2007 4:59 PM

How does the maybe-Bloomberg candidate get on the ballot, exactly?

Posted by bemused | December 31, 2007 5:21 PM

DAS, I have pretty much the same sense -- I didn't see Evita, so the fictional character I compare Perot to is the Replacement Party candidate from Nashville. Perot seemed to run on a pox-on-both-your-houses ticket, and on an idea of competence rather than any particular position; whenever he didn't want to answer a question, he just said "There's a bunch of proposals lying around, we can pick one later." And Bloomberg could do the same thing.

And in fact there is an ideological niche for Bloomberg to fill, the moderate Republican niche. There could even be a party here, the party that says that the GOP has completely gone off the rails, and you should vote for us if you want a responsible conservatism. Against universal health care and liberal government programs, but also against record deficits and the war in Iraq -- that sort of thing. That party might even have a chance at influencing the existing two-party system, by seriously hurting the currently existing GOP until it was forced to accommodate it. And it would accomplish the stated goals of Unity 08, making bipartisanship more likely by moderating the main source of obstruction, the GOP hard-liners.

Such a party could be backed by all of the Unity08 people, but it would have to aim its fire almost exclusively at GOP hardliners. And that's why it'll never happen; the Unity08 people have an emotional attachment to bipartisanship as accommodation to the existing GOP. But as a progressive, I'd love to see it happen.

(I know, Peron wasn't a fictional character. But I don't know enough about him to make the comparison meaningful.)

Posted by Matt Weiner | December 31, 2007 6:11 PM

I'd love to see a sustainable third-party (and for that matter, a fourth and a fifth). But building it through a big presidential run is absolutely the wrong way to go.

The problem with the presidential approach is twofold. One, the major parties have no need to cooperate with a third-party president: They gain nothing by making the outsider look good, and they can blame him or her for everything that goes wrong. I don't think gridlock is necessarily a bad thing, but if you want it, the outsider president is the best way to go.

Two, the approach makes a party rise or fall on the fortunes of one person. The most successful third-party in our history, the Populist Party, ran candidates at every level and was able to sustain itself for about a decade. The Bull Moose Party, tied to Teddy Roosevelt, fared poorly in down-ticket elections in 1912, and the party collapsed in 1916 when Roosevelt endorsed Hughes.

For the cost of a single, Bloomberg-style campaign, one could probably fund solid State House races in three or four crucial states. (And I mean running candidates in every state House and Senate race). It would be less glamorous than a run at the White House, but it would give voters a much-needed series of choices in their races; give newly-minted politicians political experience and a base of donors draw from and mostly importantly, create a minor-league system cultivating strong candidates for higher offices and turning the party from the Libertarian fringe into a legitimate, long-lasting challenge to the duopoly we find ourselves in. Maybe the resulting party would be the equivalent of the Liberal Democrats in the UK, but that would still inject new ideas into our discourse.

Posted by Brian | December 31, 2007 7:08 PM

The only mildly interesting thing here would be Ron Paul's response when the Republican nominee is picked.

Since he has no chance of being the nominee despite having racked up more money than the challengers, what will he do?

Could he jump ship and run as a Libertarian again? The Libs would probably love that, given the money he would bring with him - essentially robbing the Republicans. Or he could run as some sort of other independent.

I don't see Bloomberg being significant unless he pumps even more of his own money into the game. More people by now know Paul than Bloomberg. They know what Paul stands for - what does Bloomberg stand for?

But Paul comes with a ready-made external base, however small. And with some money, and a bunch of disaffected Republicans, he could make some waves - at least enough to derail the Republican challenger if the election is close.

And I predict the election will be close as most of them have been lately, because there will be no significant difference in policies between the Dem and Republican candidates - except in the degree of "hawkishness" for war - and if Hillary is the Dem nominee, she'll try to shrink that difference.

So then we end up with a Dem President - and the Republicans blaming Paul, like the Dems blamed Nader for losing them the Presidency.

So it seems to me if you're a Dem, you'd really like to see either Bloomberg or Paul run as an independent.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 31, 2007 8:09 PM

The ecological niche that Bloomberg is considering filling is that of a Republican candidate for prez who can walk and chew gum at the same time.

But the Republican party is held hostage by religious nutcases, i.e., most of the country will reject any candidate the fundies will support.

So Bloomberg is thinking about doing the same thing he did in NY- running as an "Independent" instead of the Republican he actually is. Check out his NY run to see how this works.

As for who is kidding who- that remains to be seen.

Posted by serial catowner | December 31, 2007 8:29 PM

Dead parties

I would think that how well a third party would do this year depends more on whether public perception finally catches up to the fact that both of the two main parties died decades ago.

What, dead? The GOP and the Democrats, dead? If you don't believe me, try a thought experiment. Imagine that we have contested conventions this year, that no one condidate has a lock on the votes needed to win on the first ballot. I don't call this possibility a "brokered" convention, for the very good reason that a contested convention in 2008 would most assuredly not be brokerable.

Neither party has brokers anymore. The last of these dinosaurs died a generation ago, and no one is left who even remembers how you would start to broker a convention. Imagine how the current set of string-pullers, the campaign consultants, would see their way through the problem that a contested convention would present for their client candidates. They would perceive, quite correctly, that their task would be to convince the delegates supporting opposing candidates that these opposition candidates would not be electable in the general. Their accustomed methods would lead them inevitably to suggest media campaigns to drive up their opponents' negatives so that the polls wouild show themn losing to any nominee of the opposing party. The opponents would, of course, respond in kind. And these consultants are good enough at their jobs, and have such an embarrassment of riches in terms of raw material to work with, that they will all succeed at making each other all unelectable.

The other thing that political consultants are good at is chiseling at election rules. Even in non-contested years, the obscurity of party rules over delegate selection, added to the fact that state law and party rules overlap in murky ways in governing the nomination process, always leads to some disputes over which delegates are entitled to be seated. And this year, we have a new issue of contention, in that the significant numbers of delegates will be chosen between New Hampshire and Mega Tuesday are already in party-rule limbo for both parties. Now, even in normal years, when all that is at stake in these fights over seating is which set of overweight party stalwarts gets the free-hotel-free-food-free-tchotchkes reward of being a delegate at a free media show that actually decides nothing, these seating fights tend to be about the only contentious thing that happens at the carefully staged free media show. If who gets seated decides who gets to be the nominee... Well, maybe the Dems just might make it through the delegate seating process, but it would take at least a week and result in at least some walk-outs. But the Republicans, a party whose strategists all cut their political teeth stealing elections at College Republican conventions, the Republicans would stand zero chance of even getting through the seating process without litigation, which would not be concluded by Election Day. And with seating unresolved, none of the sides will give enough to choose a candidate.

That's what Bloomberg's waiting in the wings for, the failure of one or both parties to achieve a locked convention by the end of February. Failure to achieve a locked convention, one whose results are pre-determined half a year before the convention, would doom the party that fails in this respect by exposing the lack of substance in that party. If they can't get a candidate without the need for a convention, without the fatal need for factions and individuals to actually negotiate with one another, their failure to negotiate within the parties will expose them as non-parties, or rather, parties that died some decades ago, but whose corpses just haven't been buried yet. Bloomberg is gambling that this is the year we finally hold the long overdue funerals.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | December 31, 2007 11:53 PM

Interesting that a guy with big ears and a French name managed to attract 19% of voters as an independent, given that popular passions were strong. Perhaps the worries about the big-eared B. Hussein Obama are overblown. (To clear up ambiguity, I mean the above sincerely and unironically)

Posted by nbt | January 1, 2008 6:45 AM

The posts here got me a bit misty-eyed thinking back to '92. I voted Clinton (we needed change), but Perot was right in that no one even gave the debt and deficit much thought. He ran on "fiscal responsibility" more than anything else. Check this 1 minute long video showing part of his paid "infomercial"...painful to watch now because our debt just hit 9 trillion. He was one-of-a-kind, that's for sure...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1232093616747300563&q=ross+perot+infomercials&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Posted by MissTiff | January 1, 2008 11:11 PM